


once more to see you

by dilfism



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: But Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, Cults, Emotional Infidelity, F/F, F/M, First Love, Genderfluid Loki (Marvel), Girlboss Amora (Marvel), Infidelity, Inspired by The Handmaiden (2016), Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Jötunheimr | Jotunheim, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Malewife Loki (Marvel), Mutual Pining, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, So it takes a while for him to get a hug, folk horror, no y/n, tw for grooming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:41:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29645916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilfism/pseuds/dilfism
Summary: in which you are hired to help a wealthy heiress seduce the consort of asgard and crown jewel of jotunheim, but your job becomes especially difficult when he begins to fall in love; for he shows his love by waging war.he just wants to see you.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Comments: 97
Kudos: 113





	1. grolandic edit | fathers & sons

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to my retelling of the handmaiden (2016) but it's about you and loki this time! it's long, but please let me know what u think of this first chapter. in return i'll put a little heart on the paper bag on your desk  
> gif: child-actor-gifs.tumblr.com/post/24995214069/ted-allpress-gifs  
>   
> 

_“I will warn you now that not their blood but your suspicion might build evil in them. They will be what you expect of them…I think when a man finds good or bad in his children he is seeing only what he planted in them after they cleared the womb."_

_"You can’t make a race horse of a pig."_

_"No," said Samuel, "but you can make a very fast pig.”_

_―_ ** _John Steinbeck,_** **_East of Eden_**

Odin was a man who loved his sons as a father, and fought with his sons as a king. He would come to think in moments of absolute vulnerability, that it was wrong of him, that the vulgar favoritism he displayed would be the very thing that would lead to his downfall–but the thought would always be quickly brushed aside, filed away for another day, and never touched again. 

Because Odin had always known that he must love duty more than he loved his sons.

He was never filled with indignation towards his circumstances, nor fury, _it’s just the way things are._

When the All-Father was young, very young, as young as the dirt beneath his feet and younger than the days before the great serpent coiled itself around his world, he hung himself for nine days and nine nights. The All-Father was wise. It is a tremendous burden, after all, to be in charge of everything. Every infant born, every wave that makes its way to the shore, every leaf that falls from a tree, even the ants that crawl to its surface.

The All-Father knew better than anyone.

The All-Father knew better than to break etiquette.

The structures that surround a man is what informs his sense of time, he would reason to himself. In the way that the serf lived his life relying on a cruel, unpredictable cycle, persisting through illness and the whims of nature in accordance to the weather pattern that would inform his harvest, the royal must live his life abiding to the rules that were predetermined by his heritage–a rhythm long decided. A rhythm outside of anyone’s control. 

While the serf would see the spring as a saving grace, the royal’s only palliative to his condition is inheritance, has always been inheritance. For a royal, passing along his bloodline is the only solution to the problems that life would thrust unto him without reason. 

And that solution is what united Odin to his father, what unites Odin to his two sons. They all stand hand-in hand-in hand, sharing stories with tender hearts, knowing that one day, one of them would be king, ascend to the role that he would forsake all others for, and that his brother would be left behind with no cure, no method to disrupt the cycle.

But Odin had concocted a solution long ago, before he knew that his second son even existed, and it was a brilliant solution that presented itself with a smile as bright as the sun and a head of blonde hair. There was no need for another one.

He had thought there would be. That Loki would be a solution to a problem that had plagued him, his father, and even the Earth, but it was not wise to think it a solution at all.

The truth was, Odin has always known that Loki could never be king. Loki has always been a problem, and never a solution. Children do not solve problems; they do not make things simpler. It's not their way. 

But if he knew that, if Loki truly knew, he would kick and scream and bite and resist and he would _never_ give up, so it was better to just lie. Make the child believe that it was his son, even though he was doing nobody any favors by doing so–not himself, not Thor, not even his wife. Just lie.

It’s always better to lie in order to maintain peace and etiquette.

Sometimes when he saw Loki, anxiety would flare up and down his spine. He would look at his child and become aware of all the other rooms in the palace, all the space outside of it, the closets and basements full of preserved and pickled limbs and creatures and stolen artifacts, and he would feel all of a sudden that he is not sitting at the helm of a fine and functional realm, but the operator of a cemetery. That the rooms in the palace are systematic graveyards, that all the people who took up residence in his halls occupied galleries of the dead. 

And those are the thoughts that Odin entertains as he strolls out of the castle hall and into the wing of the palace where his family resided, allowing his shoulders to relax a bit, undoing his gaudy armor and draping his robes along the forearms of whoever waited on him. A warm light from the late afternoon sun cast upon the golden walls, and Odin was assured that this was home. This was safe, secluded, and nothing would ever happen. 

There was a gust of air, suddenly, and the sound of tiny feet pattering down the stairs–a smile crept to Odin’s face.

The stairs went on for a while. They were long. Why had he instructed that such a long, winding be installed in his family’s living quarters? His wife had argued against it, for a bit, though he had insisted. He went about it cordially, of course. Tenaciously, but cordially. 

“Father!” Exclaimed a small voice after its remarkable descent, he seemed to have floated down, undersized with ears that stuck out and a high, sweet voice. His hair color often seemed to stop people in its tracks, it was void, a color that was absent of color.

“Hello, Loki.” Odin called, almost playfully, and a little face peered at him from around the imposing railing.

Odin squatted down with the same, placid smile on his face and caught the child in his arms, chuckling as he scooped him up to hold him. “What did you do today?”

“Welcome home, Father.” Little Loki murmured in his quiet voice, with a big smile as though he was compensating. “I did my studying.” He declared proudly, “and I thought of playing, but there’s nothing to play with.”

Odin kissed his forehead, settling him down onto the shiny, ornate golden floor to lead him into the playroom, Loki’s wobbly steps next to his confident ones. The sunlight seemed to set a cheery glow on the walls as Loki’s babyish reflection stared back up at him.

“It must be boring, playing by yourself.” Odin mused, “Should I bring you new toys?” 

Thor had recently outgrown his and Loki’s shared nursery and moved to his own room, but that did not stop Loki from whining and fussing and badgering Thor to come back at every opportunity. They used to spend all day in each other's company, playing with stuffed beasts and wooden swords (sometimes they used old dolls from an older time, and Thor would fill their arms with stuffing and make them flex), but the oldest son was gaining more independence, outgrowing his babyhood, and could no longer hold the hand of his baby brother with sleepy eyes. While Thor would be awake imagining his future to come, Loki would be tucked away in the nursery, sleeping soundly as a kitten. And although Odin was pleased and proud of how well his son was doing, the thought of Thor growing older saddened him somehow. 

With age comes burden. 

“No,” Loki mumbled, “S’okay.” Odin helped him sit on a couch that he had spent a few minutes clamoring to get up onto (he looked awful pleased with himself once he managed the perilous climb), and sat beside him, but his little son took the opportunity to climb up into his lap and snuggle against him. Odin laughed again. “What did you do today, pap–Father?” Loki caught himself as the word _papa_ almost left his lips. Thor had stopped calling Odin such not but a month before he was granted a room of his own, and Loki assumed he ought to be doing that, too.

Odin frowned and hesitated for a moment, unsure if telling the young child what he had truly been up to before coming home would be the gracious or appropriate thing to do. His actions that day were quite vulgar, after all, and yet; surely it was never _too_ early to expose the child that he’d already deluded to violence–he’d been recounting tales of bloodshed to Thor since he had become a toddler; but he just couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Loki was unaware of his father’s inner turmoil. He sat in complete, eerie silence with intense green eyes that burned bright under ribbons of hair. Odin frowned and stroked back a single black lock of what he might have imagined to be _her_ hair.

Perhaps it was true. Odin would never love any child as much as he had loved Hela, and his sons would always be aware of that to some extent. They’d spend their lives with arms outstretched, grasping for something they’d never truly have. 

Odin would tell Loki what he had done today, but he wouldn’t tell the whole truth.

“See, I met with some wretched people today.” He decided on after his hefty pause. “And I scolded them, because they had done some very bad things. I had to make sure that they would never do it again.”

Loki looked up at him with big eyes. “What did they do?”

Odin couldn’t hear much except for his own blood, gushing past his ears. “Those people doubted me, they didn’t put their trust into me. And they should have known better.” He allows a short laugh to escape him. “We both know better than to ever doubt Father, don’t we?”

Loki nodded.

Odin threw out an imposing hand that clenched Loki’s shoulder, “So all I did was make them understand, that Father is always right. That they should be grateful for everything that I have given them. Don’t you think so, my son?”

Loki nodded again.

The child didn’t have much of an expression, but that was to be expected. He was being bombarded with the same rhetoric he had known all his life, along with his brother. 

But maybe Loki knew that Odin wouldn’t hesitate to tell Thor of the day’s spoils–that Odin had no notion as to what to do with him. He could collect some things from the air, understand and interpret others, but he wasn’t sure why he was always so reluctant to let Loki in on _violence._

Perhaps it was because Loki had his wits about him, even as a babe, and there was a patch of dishonesty within him. And he had an inclination for cruelty that was not unfamiliar. That is not to say that Thor was any better, but Loki was more aware of his cruelty, and it would occasionally entice him, whereas Thor caused harm without so much as realizing what he was doing. The older child was proud of himself, obnoxious, and held himself in the highest regard, while the younger was reserved and often deep in thought, but one was not worse or better than the other–at least, not remarkably so.

“Wonderful.” Odin smiled. 

And it was at that moment the door to the playroom opened and the boys’ nursemaid sauntered in.

What was her name again? It certainly started with a B. Or was it a D?

Whatever it was, she was a bit annoying, and the red she wore paired with her outlandish makeup and encompassing jester cap was a bit off-putting. “All-Father!” The woman curtseyed lower than Odin (or Loki, for that matter) thought was humanly possible. “I had no idea you were given a reprieve this day. If only your sons could be so lucky every day as to reap the rewards of your time!”

Odin gave a terse smile, taken aback by the woman’s bluntness. If he was remembering correctly, she was a very odd character, but the best at what she did. She wouldn’t have been given this job otherwise. 

Loki raised a small fist, clenched around something he might have been toying with. “Hello Deja Baduhenna!” He proclaimed with the politeness of the prince that he wasn’t, articulating each consonant with extra teeth.

Loki and Thor spent an awful lot of time with their nursemaid, likely more time than they spent with anyone else. But every couple days, Loki tended to distract the directress with some sort of unanswerable query.

“Deja, why does the sun look so little if it is so big?”

Or, “Deja, why does a flag stutter in the wind and not stand straight out?”

Or, “What is God, Deja Baduhenna?”

Baduhenna was a strange woman from somewhere far away from the castle, but she covered her hair with the most ridiculous colorful outfits and wigs rather than a veil. She was thankfully far more fond of the children that she looked over than she was of supervision, and sung Loki and Thor lullabies in a foreign tongue every night before they drifted off to sleep. Whenever Loki asked one of his questions, she would smile with all teeth at him and tussle his hair about and then she would say, “Loki dear, there are many things that even adults don’t know the answers to!” and clasp her hands together.  
  


Today she seemed happy to see him, and even happier that he said hello to her first. 

“Hello, dear!” The nursemaid cooed back to him. She and Odin entered into an idle chit chat about ordinary things, the boys’ education, Loki’s mirth, the day's events in the town square.

After a while of staring at nothing in particular (with a few fingers shoved in his mouth), Loki became bored. Baduhenna began to giggle at his forlorn expression. 

What was upsetting Loki? His shoulder. Odin’s grip, it was too tight. 

Odin, still in the midst of conversation, didn’t notice. Baduhenna caught herself in her tableau of melodrama, “Why don’t we let your cherub have some fresh air? He’s been inside all day while Thor was at his lessons, after all. It’d only be right.”

Loki felt lighter, finally. Freedom!

“I do believe that would be a good idea.” Odin suddenly stood up and turned towards his son. “Loki, go play outside. And be good, understand?”

Good. Be good.

Loki knew how to be good. Thor was good, but he couldn’t be like Thor, because when he tried, everyone got mad at him. He would be quiet instead. “Yes, Father!” He slid off the couch and dashed outside, without so much as a word of goodbye to the adults. 

He made his way out into the main wing and hopped in circles around the large fireplace. _Skip, hop, hop, skip._ The truth was, Loki didn’t know much. He knew some things, like the moon and the stars and the ground under his feet as he ran that was smooth inside but turned to dirt when he got outside, but he didn’t know much. 

He continued his journey into the outside, past the same castle hall that his father had trekked through earlier, until he finally made it to the closest marble arch adorned with little golden statues–where the air brushed his skin like the paints he was playing with earlier. 

Outside! 

There are grown-ups outside today, Loki noticed, settled on each platform that his home had to offer, and there was a fiddle playing. They all seemed to be happy, dressed up and suited up and laughing in the merriment. He smiled at the scene, but that’s not where he wanted to be. His legs toddled to the destination he had in mind. 

Loki ran, delighted to stretch his legs, agile around the limbs of grown-ups without being caught once. He heard some of their chatter, “She was hung… for being a heretic… dreadfully graphic,” but he didn’t know many of the words they were using. He ran towards the private suites, past the creamy colored fountains and picturesque landscape of the palace until the waif grew to a distant dot.

Loki ended up in his secret spot, although it wasn’t so secret because Thor had been there once. It was something like a joint area between the palace and whatever lay beyond it, lined with spring-blessed trees and the ruins of something that once was.

Loki realized during one of his excursions to his spot that all the ruins, everything that was left of the towering temples and buildings that used to stand, had the same architectural scheme. They were angled differently and dressed up in different skins, but the skeletons were anything but unique.

There was a river, too, that was always rushing and spiraling because of how wind-plagued Loki’s spot was, and the trees seemed to try and cover it up like a swallow. As if they did not want Loki to see the river, or whatever lay beyond.

As if there was a line drawn between the palace grounds and whatever lay beyond. But Loki was happy to not break that line. He had no reason to.

Loki decided to sit amongst a flowerbed for a little while, and allowed the scent of lavender to tickle his nose. It was spring, after all, that’s when lavender bloomed and everything began to glow purple. That’s what he studied today. He also saw pictures of penguins, who lived on Jotunheim, and he thought to himself, “What funny looking chickens!”

Sometimes studying could get boring, but there was no one to play with. It’s alright, said mama and papa. Mama, he remembered having a mama, but he hadn’t seen her for a while.

The field was big. _I could fit a hundred chickens–no, penguins here._

“Bored.” Loki said, testing his sharp vocals that he knew existed somewhere. No one replied to him. His parents, they always said menial words, while he was good and silent. Good children are silent.

Loki sat up. His spot seemed bigger than usual that day, and a ladybug rested upon the bud of a lavender. He would play with it. After all, no one would play with him.

One, two. Loki counts on his fingers. Poor Thor, too old. Loki held his palm out towards the ladybug, and the tiny thing began to trod up his small fingers and around to the other side of his knuckle. Poor father, too busy. Odin had once told him something after handing him a knife, and his brother a hammer. He said that the weapons were tools, and that they were to be used as tools before they were ever weaponing of war. The ladybug skittered down to his wrist. That they should never love weapons, but instead love that which they defend.

Loki curled his wrist upward and smashed the ladybug with his thumb, and then shoved it into his pocket. The spoils of war. 

Father liked war, father waged war, and father liked it when Thor waged war.. And he liked when Loki was quiet. So, Loki would wage war quietly. 

Loki grinned at his discovery and sat up from the grass, father would surely be happy with him. He walked a different path back, just to prove that he could, past the garden that stretched parallel to the walkway, under the large crooked shade of a tree stationed by the side of a hill until he made it inside, finally, when it was late and moonlight filtered through the window, skittering against the golden-white of the room. He made his way up the stairs, past the portraits (always saying “That's me!” when he saw himself, a boy immortalized in brush strokes, a wonderful boy, you should remain a _boy_ ), under the large triangle that all the walls and smooth wall-papers that he ran his hands along met and said their hello’s at, and past the ornate red doorway that led to his father’s office. It took a few minutes of tugging, but he did it, and he was happy.

And the first thing he noticed, before the flowing silk and laced cushions and stationary objects, was that Odin did not look pleased. 

He was writing at the desk, face wrinkled, scowling. There were Einherjar in the family wing, that doesn’t happen very much, and Deja Baduhenna was glancing out the window.

Loki cautiously approached the desk that sat in the middle of the room (Odin was not a very good interior designer) and rested the peak of his nose on the edge, while digging through his pockets. Odin’s eyes flickered toward his son for a brief second, with one hand now flat on the desk, and scowled.

The noise of angry quill scratches continued. It was lonely.

After long last, Loki took out his hand and placed the crushed ladybug on the table, and Odin finally sat back, wiping his hand across his cheek. Ink smeared. He regarded his son like a dog.

_Crash!_

“Father!” Loki screamed.

Odin leaned across the desk to look his son in the eye. “What’s wrong, Loki?” His face turned from a scowl into a smile as he got a good look at all the emotions that his son was going through. Loki’s eyes glistened with tears. “Why did you bring that to me, Loki?”

“I thought–you said–I killed it! I killed it, I thought you’d be happy! I, I wanted to be like you, that’s all!” Loki yelped dumbly. He was crying now. “Why did you smash it? How could you!”

Odin’s gaze narrowed. “Surely, you know by now, don’t you?”

He walked around the desk slowly and grabbed his son up by the arms, hoisting him upwards. He wore a cold, malicious expression now, and Loki’s arms were as sore as they were in the afternoon.

All the onlookers were deadly silent. 

“Are you good, Loki?” Was all Odin asked.

Loki nodded his head furiously. His breaths were unsteady and his chin was quivering.

“They–”

“Ah, ah.” Odin reminded him. There was a knowing look on his face, as he set his son down and shook his head. Loki stood straight. Odin smiled indulgently at his son’s rigid posture.

After a good bout of silence. “Sorry.” Loki finally whispered. Good children are silent. Thor wasn’t, but he was not Thor. Thor was special. Loki had to be quiet.

Odin shushes him. “It’s best to be silent, Loki. Do not start blood feuds at your age. So?” They make eye contact. “Are you good?”

Loki nodded, blinking at the severity. It’s venomous. 

“Do you know why?” Odin asked.

“Yes–I do.” His small head bobbed up and down. “I promise.”

Odin raised a tepid eyebrow. “Can you prove it?”

Loki’s heart was racing. His tongue was dry. His fathers eyes were set in the most poisonous stare he’d ever seen. Was he supposed to speak? Was that allowed? Was that allowed when good children are quiet? “Is it… the family motto?” His tongue tripped around the syllables in motto, he pronounced it like something more akin to mortar. 

Odin nodded.

“Which one?”

Odin did this thing where he sort of, exhaled in the manner of a bull. “To the public face.”

Loki inhales as deeply as he could, straightened his back and shouldered the burden of the heritage that he laid no claim to. “Faþer vár es ert í himenríki, verði nafn þitt hæilagt. Til kome ríke þitt, værði vili þin. Gef oss í dag brauð vort dagligt ok fyr gefþu oss synþer órar, sem vér fyr gefom þeim er viþ oss hafa misgert. Leiðd oss eigi í freistni, heldr leys þv oss frá ollu illu.” 

“Good. Very good.” Odin smiled at Loki’s lilt of sophistication. “Now can you tell me what it means?”

Loki was scared. Was he supposed to respond? He didn’t know. Was this war? Was Odin waging war against him? Was he failing? Perhaps this was a symptom. A symptom of Loki being a bad child.

Odin kneels down to Loki’s height. “I said. Do. You. Know. What it means?” His voice was trilling, piercing his son’s ears with poison that he spit all over.

Loki nodded.

And then Odin hugged him, clutching his son with so much tenderness, urging him closer and closer and– _ouch_. His touch was just as gentle as it had been earlier that day, and Loki felt as though he was going to snap in half from the whiplash. “That’s very good. You’re a very good child, Loki.” Loki blinked. “Always be silent, okay? Do you understand?” Loki nodded. “Silence will win you wars.”

Loki froze. Odin stood up, and he seemed a lot taller than he had before. “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak. Do you understand, Loki?”

Loki nodded.

“You’re a good child. A very good child.” Odin mused, as though to himself. “For how long though?” And now he appeared melancholy. “Well. Run along now.”

And Loki ran, and no one in the room bothered to look his way, and Loki ran. Was it past bedtime? Normally he’d be put to sleep at this time by his nursemaid, but she was with Odin.

And she didn’t look at him once.

He ran and ran all the way back to his spot, where no one else could hear the erratic thumping of his heart or the way he struggled to breathe. He passed the walkway, the rolling hills and the immaculate garden, the arches and the seas of alabaster, he passed the adults from earlier (it seemed like all the respectable ones, the ones who were _deemed_ respectable were going to Church _),_ and he kept running until he made it to the swatch of grass and he felt so, _so_ relieved that he thought he might just rub his face into it.

Inhale, exhale. _Hoo, Hah. Hoo, Hah. I can breathe. I am safe here. I am secluded, and nothing is going to happen._

And for a while, he just stood there. And he wondered. And it all came crashing down.

Loki took deep breaths. Hoo, Hah. “I’m bored.” He said to no one.

Poor Thor, too old. He hummed, further exploring his world and clamoring towards the river that he’d never felt interested in sparing a glance towards. Poor father, too busy. He skips along. Poor mother, too dead. He might as well have one for himself. His lungs were dry and his lips were dry and he leaned down to watch his reflection in the water, and he saw the old trees stretch over him and the water curl around him like a halo, lapping at his feet like a loyal pet.

Adults, or the respectable ones, went to pray. That is what he would do, too, and soon he would be reunited with Thor once again. 

He began to pray; in the way he was taught to. The way he’s always heard. And he stayed like that for a while, with his head bowed in divine worship. In submission.

And that’s when he saw it, on that riverbed. Poor Loki, too sad. From across the river, the line, the divide between his gold and velvet world to cobblestone, trash, ugly houses with the same spines all tangled up in one another and lined up back to back like soldiers– _outside._ From across the divide, he saw it.

It was a street urchin, with eyes that stared back, covered in the dirtiest looking clothes that Loki had ever seen. Wide eyes peered at him, and he was almost tempted to look away, but he didn’t, because it was beautiful. It stuck out as though it had raised from the dead, stars were dancing around it like it wore the evening fog as a veil, and the eyes… they stared right into him. He was staring in awe, mouth agape.

And that’s when it asked, the voice, “Why are you crying?” whoever that was, they had to talk rather loudly, due to the distance.

And Loki could not find his voice. 

“Tell me,” it started again, “why are you crying?” 

“It is, um, because…” Loki hesitated, “I am… praying.” 

It, no, the person, whoever they are. They tilted their head, was it a head? It appeared more like a stump. “D’you always cry when you pray?” The voice called.

There was a pause while Loki tried to process just _what_ was happening. Things like this did not happen, not to younger princes. Should he be quiet?

Was it a test? They were still watching, waiting.

“I do. I don’t know.” He answered. “Do you sometimes, do you ever feel like no one can hear you?”

The mystery person, donned in all their robes, seemed to sway in the wind like something that once was. “I feel like that all the time.”

And the wind whistled louder through the grassy swatch like an orchestra, and the scent of lavender wafted through the air.

And Loki said, with all the manners he knew, all his temperament, “M’glad that someone heard me this time.”

Loki didn’t see the person turn to leave, as the mist got too heavy and too thick to see them anymore. He wondered if they’d come back.

//

You weren’t supposed to go to the river.

That was the rule, the golden rule, the one rule that had been hammered into since you were old enough to hear it, you weren’t supposed to go to the river. _Whatever you do, don’t go to the river,_ it had thrummed inside your ribcage like a mantra that had been carved and painted inside walls of thick stone way back in the earliest days, before Ymir came crawling out of the dirt sprouting up limb by dangly limb one after another, and was repeated for years and years by all sorts of good and bad people until it finally whistled its way to your ears _._ Nothing good ever came from that accursed, god-forsaken river. The river was where warriors went to pass on, where goodness went to die, where thieves got caught and lovers quarreled and innocence was lost forever.

That is what she often told you, your caretaker, but you figured it was because she was just worried about you falling in and drowning till you were cold and limp and dead. There were plenty of rivers around your city, why shouldn’t you approach this one?

But that evening, that dusk of the first day that you’d ever thought about the world and your place in it, you’d decided to go to the very river that you weren’t supposed to go near. You were very young at that time, and you figured that you might get in trouble later, but after weighing the risk and reward against the feather of Maat, you came to the cheery conclusion that everything would turn out alright. It _would_.

And you were enjoying yourself for a while, be that for better or worse. It was nice, pleasant to watch and to listen and to pray, to the wind that puffed over the water, vault-still and varnish clear, and the color flecked fish that plunked beneath it, and the tufty reeds that fought its way against cobblestone edges and screamed at everything that dared to look its way. 

For you, who was often cramped up and hunched over yourself in a room so small that a window could barely fit, it felt good. It was _good._

And someone had to come ruin your fun. As someone always did.

But it wasn’t someone regular, no, because the person–it seemed to be a _boy–_ was from across the river. That was where Beasts who sat on top of thrones resided, that’s what your guardian called them, people with bathrooms bigger than your whole house who spent all their time heaving the sun to the sky every morning and pushing the moon to the very place that they figured it ought to sit in the sky. It’s alabaster country, anthracite country there, a place as close as could be to the underworld.

Whoever that boy from across the vast sea was, he was much bigger than you, and that was even if he was your size down to the very strands of hair that swept over his eyes. He hailed from narrow towers of gold that dwarfed everything beneath them, with people of all sorts of wealth and status scattered generously around the halls. Those people were not like you, and that should have been your cue to leave, _leave,_ get out, but you didn’t, because he was crying.

“Kid,” your caretaker had once told you while she warmed your fingers with her breath as you wept on her lap, stroking them with her thumbs, “when someone near you is crying, always, the keen thing to do is try and make them smile. But if they’re doing their darndest to keep those tears from you, well, it’s best to just let them believe you can’t spot a single thing.”

And the boy in front of you was making no effort to be discreet, he was loud and shaking and there was so much _darkness_ flooding his mouth and choking him, you thought he’d run out of space and it’d start pouring onto the field out of his ears and nose. 

So, you asked him, “Why are you crying?” from across the great divide. He answered that he was praying, and you understood because every time you’d seen Church there were people sobbing and spluttering and tripping all over one another in what seemed to be an endless race to reach A Master first. 

But he said that he was glad at least someone heard him. And so, in a way, you succeeded, he was a perpetual damsel in distress and just by hearing him out, you had rescued him from his mind that wanted him dead. If only for a little while. 

Fog began careening in between you two, as though the Norns themselves pressed their mouths down flat and blew onto every inch of the world, for they had witnessed a forbidden meeting between two children who didn’t belong within a mile of each other. It quickly grew so thick that you couldn’t even make out his small silhouette among the flowers and a burden’s caress. Mist cocooned everything, from springtime buds to purple petals, setting down a suffocating woolen blanket that danced upon silver water.

And you figured you should stay, something compelled you to _just_ stay a bit longer, _please_. You told yourself that it was to make sure that your unlikely companion wouldn’t need anything once the fog rose so high that wouldn’t mean anything, but it was really just because you didn’t want to go home yet.

You didn’t see the boy again that night, but you did see someone else, as you perched yourself where the water reached its most shallow tide.

She was on her back, with a body that was covered by leaves and mud and flecks of dirt and her eyes were open. A single pendulous arm, a tattered limb, stuck out sore from the murk, and as the current moved and the wind beat against the water, the limb moved back and forth as though she was waving. As though she was happy to see you.

You grew so transfixed on the arm, on the woman, until the corners of your vision began ebbing away. Thoughts that were once clear and concise oozed out of your eyes and into the fog, where they mingled and touched, and maybe they reached the boy across from you, until you eventually fell asleep.

The next thing you remember was being held gently and securely in your caretaker’s sturdy arms, being carried home as though you were an infant. And as soon as you woke up, curled up and tucked under her chin according to one retelling of that night, you began whispering, “the woman was saying hello, the woman was saying hello,” and kept repeating it until you were brought safely home.

She wasn’t as mad as you thought she would be. Just disappointed.

On the other side of the lake, a boy wept. 


	2. good days | a proposal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hihihi this chapter introduces who you are and what you have to do with loki!! a lot of the events and dialogue here is a direct reference to fingersmith/handmaiden, but its all smooth sailing from here after this chapter! enjoy <3  
> 

_ “This decorum and etiquette, the whole self–stylization of the upper class, demand among other things that one does not allow oneself to be portrayed as one really is, but according to how one must appear to conform with certain hallowed conventions, remote from reality and the present time. Etiquette is the highest law not merely for the ordinary mortal, but also for the king, and in the imagination of this society even the gods accept the forms of courtly ceremonial.” _

_ ―  _ **_Arnold Hauser,_ ** [ **_The Social History of Art, Volume 1: From Prehistoric Times to the Middle Ages_ ** ](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1504290)

On the day that you were offered a deal you just couldn’t turn down, you couldn’t sleep. You woke past midnight to saunter to the main room where all the children stayed and noticed Sigyn hunched over with crayons splayed all over the floor, next to a half sheet of drawing paper while she scribbled her half articulated imaginanings. She was very young, still old enough to work, but not old enough to comprehend the gravity of just what it was that the kids at the orphanage were made to do if they weren’t adopted as toddlers, if they weren’t passed too and fro by the system quietly. 

Everyone in your humble home had to start stealing one day or another. All about you, your whole life, other infants came and sometimes they stayed for a little while before being taken away by mothers and fathers or other parents, and sometimes they perished; and of course, no one claimed you. But you never perished, rather, you grew up until you were old enough to whisk away cradles and bottles and take care of the children yourself. Your guardian, your caretaker, your Nanshe _ ,  _ sheltered Sigyn far more than the other children that she was handed, you noticed that from the minute the girl was left crying on the orphanage doorstep. The old woman was paid to keep Sigyn round for a dozen months and held her close to her bosom for more than a dozen years–if that ain’t love, then what is?

That’s not to say Nanshe didn’t love you, too. She never left you crying away to rot in a dingy crib either, but she prized you so and never let you out with the other prigs in case a himthiki found you–and you were the only one she was very adamant about not letting to the river. Sometimes the other adults would make remarks about blood being thicker than water, and such discussions always left Nanshe looking especially somber. Whenever you were much younger than however old you are now, the other kids would scheme and plot and think of ways to frighten you, but Nanshe would administer unto them a quick flick on their foreheads and say, “You kids can go get into whatever trouble you’d like, but leave my  _ Yaqoot  _ out of it!”

Her  _ Yaqoot,  _ her precious stone, her ruby. You thought it was an odd turn of phrase, as you were awfully plain and surely the furthest thing away from precious, but as you grew older, you noticed that she treated you as if you were precious to her. Sometimes you would sit and watch as Nanshe’s tawny hands would dip into vinegar to shine Sigyn’s hair–the way you’d treat a jewel, not even quite a pearl, and you’d think that if you didn’t have a place anywhere else, you could camp out in her heart till the end of your time. 

And sometimes, in the quiet of night when all the babies were properly bathed and burped and put to bed, Nanshe would look at you and beckon you close. “Come here, dear one,” she’d say and put her palms on the sides of your face, “let me get a look at you. I see her in you, you know, your mother,” she reckoned. That’s right, you had a mother. She’d been dead all along, had died giving birth to you, so sometimes you forgot she existed in the first place. The place in one’s heart where a mother should be residing, that’s where Nanshe lived. “I see her in you, and she’s looking at me just like she looked at me the night she gave birth to you. And she’s asking me, how was she supposed to make your fortune? But how could she know? Poor dear, she’ll never come back, and she left your fortune to be made! Your fortune, my  _ Yaqoot _ , and the rest of ours along with it.”

So she repeated, many times. Nanshe did not leave an easy life, taking care of all the orphans and all the troublesome thieves among them–but whenever she grumbled and sighed and rose from a cradle, her eyes would seek you out and as soon as they’d meet, she’d grow contented. 

_ But here you are,  _ you often imagined her saying,  _ things is hard for us now, but you’re gonna fix everything for us.  _

You’d let her think it, but you knew better. 

You were no Thief King like your mother was, and life would not make it easy for you to seek your fortune. You thought everything about yourself was  _ plain,  _ you had a plain face that you hid under a plain veil when you went out–you claimed it was for  _ modesty,  _ but veils came in handy when you thought your appearance shabby and didn’t want to be seen with plain old sticky fingers. You were a purveyor of stolen goods, could pick a plain lock and cut a plain key, you could bounce a coin and tell someone if it were good or counterfeit–they were all skills you picked up by watching the older kids when you were about five. And anyone could do those sorts of things with enough practice anyways. If your mother was the Thief King before her passing, you were no more than a thief pawn. That was nothing to mourn over–how could you be upset about the death and legacy of someone you’ve never even met?

In the end though, Nanshe had managed to whip up every child that ended up under her wing into fine shape, and did her damndest to make them all humble and God-fearing folks–including yourself, of course, but you had no choice but to be a hypocrite while stumbling down the road paved in front of you. Why would the Norns give some so much and others so little if he didn’t want you to take?  _ You oughta repent one of these days,  _ you often found yourself thinking, and you never did.

That night, as you made your way into the small dimly-lit space where Sigyn made her merry, you noticed some other of the children who roamed with you up and at it along with her–and Nanshe sewing like anything in the corner.

It made sense that the house was awake, it was a cold night, a hard night, and those kinds of nights favor thieves. No one can see a thief or a fencing man slinking through the darkness on nights like that one, and the cold made it even better. Regular folks kept to their home on cold nights, and all the grand houses in the suburbs were shut up and silent and waiting to be cracked open. Cold nights meant that thieves could jack up their prices as much as they wanted to, because the cold makes people come to a bargain in a jiffy. 

Especially if they were bargaining over coats. While Sigyn’s near white hands were occupied with her papers (she didn’t want to learn to sew, which made her a bit of a simpleton to you but you never said so, maybe you were a bit sweet on her), another child at the orphanage called Hahanu was skinning the fur off dead animals and passed all his work to Nanshe so she could stitch it up to sell now that winter would be arriving soon. 

Hahanu, a cold and knifish young lad, put himself in charge of collecting the furs every winter by whatever means necessary. He used to steal them from the market and everyone figured that was just fine, but after a scare when he thought a himthiki caught sight of him, he nabbed a single female dog from who knows  _ where  _ and would wait for the old thing to enter heat. Then, he’d walk the poor bitch around the street and tempt dogs away from their owners, run fast as a fox, and see if they would follow. If the dog’s owner managed to catch up with him, he’d charge a ridiculous ransom, and if they didn’t, he’d kill the dogs and collect its furs to turn into coats and sell. He brought in a large profit every year, you had to admit, even if you felt just horrible for the dogs. It was thanks to Hahanu that the chill of cold nights wouldn’t make its way into the orphanage–for he could pay some of the children an allowance to sweat the gold off sovereigns and keep the coal burning. 

Hahanu, on the night that you would land your fortune, decided to make a horrific mess on the floor after cutting pelts off flesh, and Nanshe noticed quickly as a whip.

“Will you mind your manners?” She said to him in an admonishing way, “You’re making such a mess and it’ll be my poor jewel who has to tidy up.”

Hahanu scoffed, “Poor  _ baby,  _ ain’t my heart bleeding.”

You rolled your eyes. He was often cruel to you, but as long as he kept getting those skins that could be sold to the market, you couldn’t give a fraction of a thought to it.

Nanshe sighed and held the coat up so everyone could see how well it looked, and she frowned when she noticed just how short she’d made it.

You chuckled, “Well since the coat ain’t a great deal taller, maybe Hahanu could wear it for himself. It’d be a good job for Nanshe to make coats as small as that.” You glanced at him.

“It’s a good job for you that you ain’t dead.” He stuck his tongue out. Kid was short, and he knew it. He felt it–small and stocky, the words late bloomer came to mind. But he made up for it in his sheer audacity. “But it’s a damn shame for the rest of us, maybe I could use  _ your  _ skin for the next coat. You could do that, right Nanshe? Stitch that up in a jiffy?”

Sigyn, who was awfully young, began tearing up at all the talk of gore. The smell probably wasn’t doing anyone favors, either. 

“That’s enough from you.” Nanshe snapped, “I won’t have you making these two nervous.”   
  


You said that you should have your throat cut out and fed to the vultures if you were ever made nervous by someone like Hahanu. He said that he should be happy to cut it for you. Nanshe smacked him upside the head. Sigyn cried louder. 

She continued sniffling, “Don’t listen to them’s harsh words, Hahanu. I sticks with you, right?”

“You’re right, you do sticks to me, like a tumor!” And he stuck his tongue out at her. Sigyn stood up, slammed her foot to the ground three times like she did when she was mad, and stormed off to the kitchen. 

So it goes. Nanshe too absorbed in her work to pay any mind to Hahanu’s provocations, and you mostly sat idly, bobbing your leg up and down while Nanshe told you to quit that nasty habit. Sigyn realized she forgot her drawings, marched in to collect them, and marched out. You frowned. Laying down on the wood floor to color instead of the carpet couldn’t be good for her back, or comfortable, maybe you should steal a desk one of these days. 

You couldn’t blame her for being on edge nowadays, children always were when the sun started to set sooner in the day. The orphanage was always a bit uncomfortable that time of year, when icy-cold air would blow in from the surrounding bodies of water that the isle sat on top of, chilled to the bone and making it a personal goal to remind everyone of their status. It made sense that your home was so out of touch from the rest of the municipality, just far enough away from everything that no one would care what went on. Every palace like the one beyond the river needed a slum of houses all stacked together sleeping underneath it in order to show how large it just was. But you could be sleeping giants, too. It was a colorful city, but the brickwork and mud and crowded marketplaces weren't dappled in gold by sunlight this time of year, no one except the statues and temples of old felt any warmth from the pale sun. 

Your joint region wasn’t much, and your orphanage was even less than that–a building with shabby furniture that looked on the inside and out like it had been pulled hook, line and sinker, mismatched out of the belly of a whale. Just a cog in a machine, an uncharted hometown that was half decent to live in when the tide was low and the winds weren’t raging. The population hadn’t grown in eons, since a time that your predecessors were children. Despite that, it had plenty of people to justify its existence, and every year lanterns and candles would be strung up to commemorate those who had died in war.

Unnoticed, the town played its part. There was plenty of pride in that.

At night, when everyone was snoring away and you found yourself hunched over in the attic that you slept in, you could shut your eyes and hear the sounds of water lapping against the walls of buildings outside. Sometimes you dreamed of the orphanage sinking into the waves, when the water would flood over and the rushing menace would wash away the causeway that kept your city afloat, breaking the thin binds to the palace grounds and the rest of the mainland. In your dream, the sea would sweep away everything, swallowing it–the houses and bridges and places of worship, and the people who built so boldly on its surface. 

You mused for a bit, but then you noticed how bright it was. Usually the fire was the only thing keeping the room lit up on these sorts of chilly nights, but these candles were  _ bougie.  _ Some had little carvings on the sides of them, idols and the like, and they were all tall and slender and sculpted from pale wax. 

“Nanshe,” you nudged her with your toe, “where’d you get these candles from?”

Nanshe, looking a bit self-conscious, held the pelt high enough to hide her face. “One of the kids snagged them from Church, last time we went. I thought I ought to say something, but there are probably hundreds, if not thousands lying there. What’s the harm in taking a few every now and then, if it keeps the babies warm?”

You grinned at her, “As long as you’re blowing the Virgin Mother a kiss for each one.” 

“Pah!” Hahanu scoffed, “The blues ain’t gonna arrest Nanshe, or no poor orphan for snagging a few candles.”

“They might!” Piped Sigyn’s little voice from the kitchen. “Because your guardian angel leaves if you steal from a Church. You’re not allowed to do that!” 

“Guardian angel, yeah right.” Said Hahanu, although he did look a tad bit worried. 

“Don’t worry about a damn thing, Hahanu.” You said to him. “With the way you’re lazy, you would have been in the slammer decades ago if it wasn’t for your guardian angel. I bet they have to work twice as hard as the rest of ours.”

That seemed to wind him up like a toy, “I bet you don’t even have one! I ain’t even been alive as long as you’re saying!”

You gave him a wide grin, leaned to snatch something out from under the couch, and took out a deck of cards.

The two of you played with that set often, skinny cards that were all limp as rags. Someone had been killed over those cards once, during a crooked game. He looked over at the cards you're dealt, to tell you where to place them.

“C’mon, put the, uh, the jack over the bitch of hearts–Lord! Ain’t you a slow one.”

“Ain’t  _ you  _ a hateful one.” You said to him, as the both of you kept up with the game.

The night continued like that, for the better part of an hour, before a gust of wind announced its arrival, and blew out every candle set up in what seemed to be succession, one by one. What was once lit by the fire that Prometheus snagged and shifted into hands and sticks and rocks before making its way back to the Lord, was as dark and empty as the cave where man was born. The fire that was keeping everyone warm from below hissed as though it was doing its absolute hardest to just  _ stay alive  _ while rain thrummed loud as it could on the roof, and then–

There was a thump.

“Did you hear that?” Nanshe asked?

“Hear what?” Hahanu replied.

They were footsteps, the thumping, and you weren’t expecting anyone. You wouldn’t figure that anyone else was, either. They stumbled closer and closer, louder and louder until you heard the squeak of leather that accompanied it rubbing against the door. 

Then there was a knocking.

_ Knock. Knock. Knock.  _ Just like that. Slow and heavy. The kind of knock you’d think only existed in dreams when ghosts and tax collectors came to visit you, that kind of knock. It wasn’t light, like a thief's knock, this knock was one for business. But that business could be anything at all. It could be bad. 

Nanshe could turn into someone terrifying when she was on the prowl, as though her whole demeanor changed. Her presence took up the whole room then, when she stood and closed the entrance to the kitchen, glaring at Sigyn to ensure that the girl would stay quiet. 

If it was the blues, you were done for.

Hahanu grabbed a knife fast as he could manage, he was good at that, being shifty and fast, and made his way quickly to stand behind the door while Sigyn tumbled her way out of the kitchen to wrap everything of any value, the sovereigns, the gold in handkerchiefs before making her way back.

The knock came again.  _ Knock, knock, knock. _

Nanshe took her place on the other side of the doorway that Hahanu was hanging about. “All tidy?” She asked. “Be steady, everyone. Now,” she looked you in the eye with that same sort of contented expression she often gathered while gazing at you, “it’s up to you.”

You looked again at her and you nodded  _ I’m getting the door?  _ And she nodded  _ yeah you’re getting the door.  _ You knew what had to be done–the same thing you always did when you saw someone, and grabbed your veil. It was a simple thing, a plain thing, enough to cover your head down to your torso, and there was a little mesh covering in front of your face so that no strangers knew what you looked like–so no strangers could recognize you and yell “thief!” Plenty of people donned veils in this town, all flat ironed down and indistinguishable, so as long as you changed it up, you’d never be caught. And what lawman would lay his hands on someone so dedicated to the Norns? So humble? 

So you threw your scarves on a jiffy and skipped as fast as you could on the very pointed tips of your toes to snatch the knob right off the bolt as quick as a hare in the story Nanshe told, and it slammed so quickly and hard against you that you figured it had to be the police and that you were done for and you were all going to die and the babies in the other room would all go to foster care and–Hahanu braced himself and lifted the knife–but it was only a gust of wind.

It was only a gust of wind, and you were alive. 

“Well, is that you? Thank goodness! I’ve travelled this whole way just to see you, let me see you!” And she pushed herself inside.

It was Amora! 

She was so covered up, unrecognizable, donned in rags so dissimilar to her usual style of dress that you didn’t think you’d recognize her if she didn’t say nothing to you first.

Amora. That was how you said it, not like a noble lady would,  _ Amora,  _ annunciating it with teeth and tongue, but like a whistle of low air–as if her name was a fish and you’d gutted and filleted it.  _ ‘Mmra.  _

“It’s Amora.” You said, and Hahanu lowered his knife and Sigyn started releasing the sobs she was holding back.

Nanshe pushed herself off the wall with her mouth as agape as the fish you’d made of Amora’s name, “Why Amora, you gave us the fright of a century! Sigyn, put the kettle to fire.” 

The candles lit back up. You forgot that Amora could do that.

“We figured that yous might be the blues.” You remarked as you opened the door to let her inside.

“I believe I have turned blue!” She replied and jogged on shivering feet to the vent to get some hot air.

You’d known Amora for a while, in the sorts of way that she never met up with you, but was always around; though you hadn’t seen her for a year at that point. Last you’d heard of her, she was cozying up to the priest of this town. Sometimes she’d use a different name when she swung by, or changed her hair color–but you could always tell it was her. 

She shrugged off the drab coat she was wearing to reveal her normal get up, skin tight, flimsy, and green as grass. As regular, there were rings scattered round her fingers and a large jewel swinging on a chain that hung from her neck. You could tell without inspecting them that the rings were snide and the jewel was paste, but they worked just and fine for counterfeits. You’d probably think they were the real thing, too. 

The tight room grew brighter as you all made your way to the kitchen, with Amora using her fancy to light the candles one by one. 

Amora. It was a lady’s name, and it suited her because at one point she really was a lady. She’d been some kind of noble gal from a land far off, somewhere that you couldn’t be bugged to remember. At one point she had a mother and a father and even a sister, all swells, whose hearts she had just about broke one after another. Even though she had money, she spent most of her time gambling in the hopes of making more, till her mother asserted she wouldn’t be getting a cent of the family fortune. She ended up obliged to making money the old fashioned way, she was a scammer, no better than you. Something about her comforted you. Her presence, always draped around in some form was a reminder that you were the same. That no matter where you started out, you’d have just the same chances of ending up here at the bottom of the barrel. She took to that scandalous way of life so well that you wondered if there was some bad blood in that fancy family from generations ago that came out full force in her.

She ended up getting herself a mentor, after camping out in the palace town, Valaskjalf, for a good while–the very Priestess of the Odinfamily herself, Karnilla. How she managed to snag such a fine teacher, you’d spend the rest of your days wondering about.

Karnilla took Amora under her wing and made it so that the Odinfamily had no who she actually was. She taught Amora her magic, her trade, with good intentions and Amora would use those lessons to scam–she could create quite the forgery when she so chose. And that’s what she did, forgeries, and sold them for ten times more than they were worth. She stuck with Karnilla for a few months until she was offered to take the vow of chastity, the vow to save yourself and dedicate yourself to the norns to become a prophet–and then she left. She mixed well with the Society, likely because she’d been a part of it for so long. She’d ruined many a life by selling folks faulty stock, and she came around once a year with bad coin, spoils, cautions, and poke. 

You figured she came around with spoils this time, since her pockets were empty of poke and she appeared more relaxed than you’d ever seen her. 

You all sat down in the kitchen, worrying over each other with hushed voices so that no one would be so loud and wake the children up. Sigyn handed to Amora a hot cup of tea with rum in it and hurried to sit herself in a chair.

“Alright, Amora.” Nanshe sat down. “It’s a pleasure alright, now we know we won’t have to look for you these next few months. Do you have something you figured I’d like the look of?”

Amora shook her head. “Nothing for you, I’m afraid.”

“Something for the orphanage head then.” Nanshe grew confidential.

“Nothing for him either. Nothing for you, nothing for Hahanu here, not a thing for Sigyn, or the babies, nor even for the boys working the fire.” She said all this skirting around the room with her eyes until they finally settled upon you.

You?   
  


You’d said nothing–spending your time taking the playing cards that the wind had scattered and sorting them back into their suits. When you noticed her gazing your way, you settled the cards down in front of her to sit down and she immediately picked them up to begin shuffling. She was that kind of gal, one whose hands always had to be worrying themselves. 

“Well then, what do you say?” 

“What do I say to what?” You asked.

“What do you say? It’s you that I’ve travelled all the way here to see.”

“Seriously?” Hahanu threw his hands up in disgust.

Amora nodded. “I’ve got something for you. A proposal.”

“A proposal!” Hahanu shrieked. “Careful, she’s going to ask to  _ marry  _ you!” and then he made annoying sounds with his mouth. Sigyn looked like she might just fall over.

Amora grinned. “Something of that sort. Now before I start,” she looked back at you, “I have a story. A story that’s got hide and seek in it.”

Of course it did, everything in this town came back to a game of hide and seek, one of cat and mouse. With all the nooks and crannies, the deserted houses, boarded up churches… this place was the perfect playing field. But you weren’t worried. In every game you’d played, you’d always found the person you were looking for. 

You looked at her with a face you imagined could have been skeptical, “I figure you came here to play hide and seek with the gold, since the gold knows best. So what’s the gold know?”

It did make sense Amora would ask you something over anyone else, but you couldn’t be certain of the magnitude. She had taught you bits and pieces of her craft, too. Tricks, and only things that would help you be a better knuckler; looking through ruses, feeling someone’s emotions to know if they were shifty or not, basic things. Even a child could learn as much as you.

For a minute, no one spoke a word. Candlelight flickered on the bottom parts of everyone’s faces, leaving them to look cut through and hollowed out. Sigyn’s leg rattled up and down causing the table to shake and Hahanu chewed on his lip.

“Alrighty then. I’ll tell you what it knows.” Amora conceded. She set the stack of cards down in front of her and without looking, grabbed the King of Diamonds. “I’d like you to imagine a man. He’s gone old, old enough that he’s hardened around the edges. You can see the soles of his cheeks, just nearly, but he hasn’t begun to forget anything yet.” 

She slides the card to the center of the table as you all look on at rapt attention.

“So this man. He’s a bit sleezy, as you’d say, wishy-washy, in the way all politicians are. I should mention he’s a politician. He was originally from this place called Vanaheim, a place where I’m from,” you noticed a brief shadow fall over her face as the candles cascaded around it, “and he was something of a traitor. Growing up, he was wise, a gentleman scholar, in fact, but he always had the most curious habits.”

She places two delicate, manicured fingers on top of the card to turn it around, and continues shuffling the deck. If you listened close enough, you could hear the river churning and threatening to wash you all away.

“While Odin was waging wars against other territories, expanding the grip he’s always had on the nine realms and lying to cover up anything he could, this old man decided to help him.”   
  


“What a slimy bastard!” Hahanu intercepted.

“He betrayed his own family?” Sigyn seemed aghast. 

“How you all catch on!” Amora conceded. “He helped Odin annex the nine realms, and was given a gold mine in return.”

There it was. The gold that you’d spend your time sniffing out.

“And it’s brilliant gold, more gold than you’ve ever even thought of in your life!” Amora continues. “I heard all about it during my time at the palace. And as for him, well, he lives in a certain out-of-the-way house, never mind just where, and that’s where he used to indulge his most curious habits. After receiving the mine, he wanted to throw away all of his blasted Vanir roots. He became a naturalized citizen and married an Aesir woman, a daughter of a noble, in fact, in order to become fully Asgardian. He spends his gold to fill his house with Asgardian books, scrolls, paintings, murals art,” Amora’s hands swung side to side as she said that, likely because she believed it pretentious, “and then, to get more gold, he invites collectors from all over to auction away his belongings. But there are some artifacts he just can’t bear the thought of losing.”

Amora reaches into the deck and places down another card. Jack of Spades.

“And what would he do when he can’t bear to part with his precious Asgardian garbage, but want to sell it for the money?” Her eyes dart out to look at all of you, as if she’s telling you a secret and everyone is in on the conspiracy. “Why, he hires someone to create forgeries of course!”

“That someone is you!” Sigyn piped up. The fire flickered on.

“Very good! That someone is me.” She flipped the jack over. “Most of the artifacts are ancient, some of them even used to be locked away in a vault, so they require a special kind of magic that I can perform beautifully in order to recreate–or at least, I can recreate well enough to sell.” 

“So…” Hahanu appeared to be thinking very hard. He was taken by Amora’s story, despite his sulks, “you go to the old fool’s crib in the country and ramsack it? Make copies of his stuff and sell it?”

Amora smiled and tilted her head, drew in her breath in a very teasing sort of manner and said, “Wrong! You’re cold as ice, Hanu!” He blushed at the nickname. You didn’t blame him, she was stunning. “The, uh,  _ crib in the country  _ is probably the ugliest most damnable place that anyone’s seen nowadays. It fell quickly out of repair after the passing of his wife, and there’s not much there anymore. No, he ate his supper off of china, not gold when he was living there, just like us.”

“Alright,” said Hahanu, hushed now, “it’s because prissy folks like him stuff all their money in a bank, don’t they? So you forged a paper that left you all of his gold and you’re here for a bottle of cantarella and you needed No-Face to–”

Amora smiled with pursed lips and shook her head.

“Not even a drop of poison?” Hahanu looked like a kicked puppy.

“Not an ounce of poison,” Amora confirmed, feigning dismay, “not even a little. And there’s no money in a bank, at least, not under his name. He hoards all his cash with him, carrying real,  _ authentic  _ gold and diamonds to every party he attends. Now, this is where you need to pay attention.”

Amora’s deft fingers grab a card in the stack, but she didn’t reveal what it was yet. All of your eyes flicker back up to her somber face.

“After his wife’s passing, the old man couldn’t handle it. He went off the deep end and gambled off all the money he had at ready–all while that gold was sitting in funds. Odin felt sorrow for his friend and let the tight-wad grab all his musty belongings and trudge his way to the palace to live amongst Odinfamily themselves. He was so heartbroken and wretched over the loss of his wife–who was half his age at the time of her passing, mind you,” everyone made a face, “that Odin wanted to find a way to console him. And it was simple.” 

She revealed the card–Queen of Hearts–and placed it reversed in between Jack and King.

“Odin gave his friend a concubine?” You asked, horrified.

“Very game.” Hahanu shrugged.

Amora sighed, “What I’m about to say is rather disturbing. Sigyn, hands over your ears, please.” The girl complied. “To soothe the man’s grieving soul, Odin offered his friend the hand in marriage of his youngest child. Loki. As a consort.”

A beat of silence.

“He would do that to his own  _ kid _ ?” You asked, horrified.

“The bastard!” Hahanu concedes.

“So gross…” Sigyn mutters with her hands still clasped over her ears. “Isn’t the Prince much younger than his friend, too?”

“ _ So  _ much younger.” Amora nods. “That’s Loki. In years, he’s, say, about,” she inclines her head towards you, “your years. In looks, say, handsome, sometimes pretty when he wants to be. Of sense, understanding. Very knowledgeable. But like his older siblings and his father, he has a penchant for cruelty that’s very on-brand for our beloved royal family.” 

A surge of empathy ran through you. To lose his mother at such a young age, have siblings that were far too old to understand him fully, and then be subjected to this sort of torment. It was almost satirical–if you were in his position, you’d likely end up cruel, too. Surely he would not succumb to this fate of his? 

He was the frost giant prince, after all. That was public knowledge. 

“Alright.” For the first time since sitting down, Nanshe spoke. “Amora, this whole time you’ve been promising us your story; but what we have so far is just  _ pastry!  _ Where’s the meat, kid, where’s the meat! And more important than that, how is my  _ Yaqoot  _ going to help cook it?”

You wished she would stop calling you that in front of everyone. It was horribly unbecoming. 

Amora stood up and collected all the cards, then shoved them underneath the neckline of her top. You all waited while she sauntered around the kitchen and finally sat back down.

“You want the meat, Nanshe? Very well, here it is.” She takes the Queen of Hearts back out. “Because the old man and Loki are to be married, and Loki is by law a member of the royal family, he’s rich, richer than the old man could ever dream of after he spent all his assets that weren’t liquid on his collection. But Loki is only rich in the way that a clover is rich in honey, or a caterpillar is rich in wings. His fortune is certain, especially since the old man will  _ certainly  _ die before him, but it comes with a condition attached. He won’t see a lick of that money until the day he’s finally married off–and he’s waited his whole life preparing for that. There is enough money to buy the whole realm, plus the liquid funds sitting in the gold mine, waiting for Loki to whisk it away.”

A crack in the fire went  _ pop!  _ Hahanu let out a whistle between his gap tooth. You glanced at Nanshe, but her head was ducked down and her look was dark as you’d ever seen it. 

“I bet the old man keeps him real close, doesn’t he?” You ask.

“Close enough.” Amora shrugs. “They don’t talk to each other much, but the old man is always gazing over his shoulder. Now, he’s been spending the last few years gambling away the objects he’s spent his life collecting in order to get more money–until he met me. I create forgeries for him, he auctions them away and gives me a solid fraction of the money. But soon, he’ll get tired of it. He’ll want someone to create forgeries for him for no fee at all, so I propose to teach Loki to improve his craft–that way, he’ll be as good as me. He takes to his instruction, I seduce him as soon as possible, we elope  _ far  _ away from that rotten old man–'' she placed the Queen of Hearts upright, “I seize all of Odinfamily’s wealth, and lose all my need for him. The solution? Lock him up in a madhouse, say he went insane and ran away from home. The old man has no clue what happened, Odin is too sick to care, and I’m rich! You all get a cut of the shine, of course.” She flashed a charming smile.

You shuddered. “Where do  _ I  _ come into all this?”

“Of course! How could I forget.” Amora folded her hands in yours. “My proposal. My old mentor, Karnilla, has recently passed away, and the palace Valaskjalf is on the lookout for a new prophet–someone with all the same gifts as Karnilla did. Someone to lead prayers, and to aid with Loki’s fitful sleeping habits.”

You gape, “But I don’t have any gifts!”

“No,” she says patiently, “not yet. but you know enough seidr, you are humble, and you are good, which is to say that you are bad–not too nice around the finer points of the law, and no one but us knows what you look like under that old thing,” she reaches a hand to tug at your veil, which you grab back immediately, “so you won’t be recognized as a criminal, or a criminals child. You could play the part of the prophet perfectly, because you and Karnilla are both simple. And with that, there’s one more thing.” She leans back in her seat. “When it’s time to throw Loki into the madhouse, I’m afraid that he might be too sharp and quickly understand what’s happening. I need you to keep a close eye on him and keep  _ him  _ simple. You need to dull him down, scrape down his pointy edges and persuade him, in your dullness, to the plot.”

Everyone turned their eyes towards you.

And truth be told, you weren’t sure how willing you were to throw yourself into this raging storm.

It was hair-brained at best and doomed to fail at worst, with so many variables that you figured just about fell unaccounted for. What if Loki was somehow immune to Amora’s charm? What if Odin miraculously recovered? What if the madhouse blew up and you had to go to a different one and Loki kept asking where you were taking him? What if the old man grew suspicious of the lessons, whether there was any real teaching going on, and sent a chaperone to sit in during them, rendering the plan useless? 

But there was the money.

With that kind of money, you’d be able to do anything, anything at all. It was just just impossible to not ponder the possibilities laid out in front of you; you could buy the infants new blankets and get everyone in the orphanage candles to keep them warm–you wouldn’t even have to steal them. You imagined buying Nanshe a new cooking pot from a cheery old seller like you always saw other people doing. You could wear your own face to one of those colorful marketplaces scattered all across town, go up to a stall with coins in your pocket and buy your own winter coats instead of killing dogs to ward off the chill of winter. 

You could eat breakfast every morning and dinner every night before bed, and you could bathe without worrying about runoff water that would give your feet an infection, maybe even bathe alone. You could dress in clothes of thicker silk that didn’t brush up against your skin and itch, and you could run to somewhere far off that isn't this town. 

You remembered when you had begun to steal, at that moment. You remembered how you had learned. It was only food for a little while, and then money, too. At first, you always got scared and your fingers started trembling before all the fear washed over you in waves and passed through you before it all became an exciting game. You remembered how before, before you wrapped yourself layer by layer, cotton scarf over scarf, in a thick cocoon of lies that you nestled yourself and hid away from the world in, there was something that laid underneath. Someone.

A sleeping giant.

The money. If you got the money, you would have a better life.

Hahanu’s voice interrupted your thoughts. “No way  _ you’re  _ gonna agree. You should ask Sigyn instead, Amora.” He chuckled, “ _ That one’s _ far too cowardly.” Could he at least talk about you like you were in the room?

Sigyn raised her hand. “It’s true! I’ve worked as a maid six times now, for all sorts of rich folk! Let  _ me  _ go with you, Amora!”

You sulked at both of them. Sure, Sigyn was always the one who got to work amidst rich folks, but you were more than capable of pulling off this heist–why shouldn’t you be? And you weren’t quite sure if Sigyn had it in her to be so terribly wicked. But Amora had come for you, for whatever reason, and she was smart. Real clever. No way she would have asked you, forget traveling to ask you if she didn’t think that you were the person for the job. 

“Now, now.” Nanshe silenced them, “I don’t recall Amora asking neither of you. And she still’s not got a response.” She turned towards you. “What do you say?” 

You sigh, and glance back at Amora. Everyone right now was probably wondering if you had it in you to be brave; you weren’t sure. Everyone always thought you were, but you were really just faking, like you always did. Your heart was banging like a sledgehammer against your ribs and threatening to escape. “This plan,” you say to her, “ain’t it terribly wicked? What we mean to do?” 

To everyone’s shock, Amora didn’t respond as quickly as she tends to, no, she began laughing. Hollering, would be a better word for it. “Wicked? Why, of course my plan is wicked! It’s horrendous, evil, villainous, all sorts of vile! But there seems to be a very important point flying right over your head. It’s wicked to the tune of more money you’ve ever dreamed about, to more gold than I figure anyone would know what to do with in their lifetime! If you don’t think that’s a sweet tune, you’re free to hum it how you will–but don’t go thinking that any of this money was gained  _ honestly. _ Money never is. It’s gained by families like his, from Loki’s, from the broken backs of the poor. Say twenty backs broken for every single coin made. Now, have any of you ever heard the tale of Robin Hood?”

“Sure have.” You shrugged.

“Well, that’s what we will be! Me and you should take gold from the rich and give it all back to the people they took it from.”

And at that moment, you raised your eyes to meet Nanshe’s, and maybe that would be the worst mistake you could have made.

_ Your fortune is still to be made, and ours along with it.  _

“Alright.” You said with a hint of finality. “I’ll do it, and I’ll do it right. But you’ve gotta cut the shine however I deem. And should that Prince suspect me of any fowl play, I want you to pay me two-hundred before I get sent off, just because I tried.” 

Amora sat back, hesitated, and pretended to mull it over, but of course it was all for show. She reached out her hand until you caught it and pressed her fingers to yours. 

You had never lived an opportune life. Never a life that would make it easy for you to seek your fortune. 

Hahanu scoffs while your hand is still folded in Amora’s. “I’d bet you come back crying in a week.”

You cross your arms haughtily. “Oh, I’ll come back, wearing silks and gold and ten watches on both wrists, bags full of copper coins, and you’ll have to call me  _ your majesty.  _ Won’t he, Nanshe?”

“I’d sooner cut out my tongue than do that!” He sticks it out at you for emphasis.

“I’ll cut it out first!” You declare. 

The deal was done, and you sounded like a child. Hell, you were about a child, and they all  _ knew  _ that. Amora was grinning, but Nanshe didn’t say a thing. She sat still, gazing at you with something that looked like fear. 

But why should she be afraid? You did it for her. The wind howled louder than you’d ever heard it outside.

A week passed.

You didn’t care much for the detail of your travelling down there, across that wide river–and you cared even less for Amora’s lectures on how a proper Prophet ought to act. 

You had learned though, more than the tricks that Amora had taught you previously. She taught you her Seidr, far more than just the thieving bits of _fjölkynngi_ . Shamanism was a Prophet’s real trump card. It was more than just crafty magic, but real, consequential actions that took real forms you were learning. Fate, the art of it, how to operate within it to fool the Norns for just a little while, that was the stuff you were real interested in. 

Over the week, you entered trances. Amora taught you bits and pieces of divination and clairvoyance, but it wasn’t more than what you’d be able to learn in a week. You certainly were no expert, but you were good enough by the time the last day rolled around. You caught on quickly. 

You remembered Nanshe reciting to you the oral lessons you’d heard since childhood, and you remember Hahanu bugging Sigyn so much as she tried to flat iron your veils that she grabbed one of them and threw it into the fire.

“Can’t you do anything,” you asked, “except make that girl cry?”

“I like when she cries. It makes her sweat less.”

He was an evil boy, alright. 

But both of them were caught up in the excitement of Amora’s plot. You all were, and your gaze shifted from anything else to that alone. Your lessons lasted a week in total, before Amora finally took a look out of the curtains that donned the window and deemed that you were just about ready for anything. She handed you a trunk, stuffed to the brim with fancy garments she got from who knows  _ where,  _ and sat you down the very afternoon of.

It was sunny that day, you could glance out the small window and see the surface of the canals glittering. It was a day that spelled out hope, promise, and good fortune. At least, you thought so. Lord knew you needed it. 

“Alright. Say that you have to talk to Loki, or one of his meddlesome siblings. What do you say?”

“Ain’t it… Prince Loki?”

“Ain’t it Prince Loki  _ what _ ?”

“Prince Loki… your highness?” 

Amora put her head in her hands for a moment, resting them there. “Have you been paying any attention at all? You need to say to him, at least for the first time, Prince Loki, heir to Jotunheim, god of mischief, Odinson.”

“Prince Loki, heir to Jotunheim, god of mischief, Odinson.” You repeated.

“That’s very good. And what shall he call you?”

“The Prophet.” You said straight off. “The Prophet of the Norns. No one can know my name, or my face, both of them need to stay hidden. A prophet is, um,” you think of the word she used, “untraceable. A prophet won’t lead back to this rotten place, like a name or my face would.”

“Just tidy.” She stood up, and pointed at you, then. The sunlight danced in her blonde hair in a way that was almost similar to the water outside. “Who are you and what are your responsibilities, Prophet?”

You take a deep breath in. You’ve recited the fabrication for hours upon hours this week, and had it just about memorized. She spoke funny, not quite like you did, but you tried. “I’ve been invited to the palace after the passing of the high priestess, Karnilla. She found me when I was just a babe, when I would have premonitions in the form of dreams. I still do. That’s what made her think I’d be perfect for the job, more so than any of her former apprentices, and Lady Amora wrote me a letter of recommendation.” You folded your gloved hands across your lap in a way that you hoped looked mannerly. “I have to lead sermons, and serve in the chapel for whatever they may need me for. I’ll need to do baptisms, confessions, communions, holy orders, anointing of the sick, and marriages.” Your lip quirked up then, and you were glad Amora couldn’t see it, at the idea of you officiating a marriage. This plan was way too damn absurd. 

Amora tilted her head. “That was fine in attention to detail, but simply asinine in terms of style. I know Nanshe taught you better than that, you’re not selling flowers. Again.”

You pulled a face, feeling thankful she couldn’t see you again, and said the whole thing more carefully.

“Much better! Now what are you  _ really  _ up to?”

You smiled. “I am going to convince Prince Loki, heir to Jotunheim, god of mischief, Odinson, to fall in love with you, and leave his betrothed for your sake. That if he should elope with you, he will make his fortune, and you, Lady Amora, will make mine.”

Amora laughed and threw her arms around you, and said, “Prophet, we’re going to be rich!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what do u think y/n? do you like the setup here :0 tell me what you think so i can stare at my screen like this and be so happy  
> 
> 
> gif credit: gameraboy1.tumblr.com/post/620317225828679680/cowboy-bebop-1998-ballad-of-fallen-angels


	3. this house is a circus | an introduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> two people meet for a second time, without a river to drown out their voices

_ Once upon a time there was a girl, and the girl had a shadow. The two were connected, tethered together. When the girl ate, her food was given to her warm and tasty. But when the shadow was hungry, she had to eat rabbit, raw and bloody. On Christmas, the girl received wonderful toys, soft and cushy. But the shadow’s toys were so sharp and cold, they’d slice through her fingers when she tried to play with them. The girl met a handsome prince and fell in love, but the shadow, at that same time, met Abraham. It didn’t matter if she loved him or not. He was tethered to the girl’s prince after all.  _

**_Us, Jordan Peele_ **

The old man’s name, as you would come to learn, was Hoenir. He didn’t look like what you’d expect–where you were imagining coldness and sharp angles, he was thin, tall and white-faced. Stout. Muscular in some places and with nothing to show in others. He did not look horribly cruel, like you imagined he would. 

When the carriage that Amora requested for you pulled up to the palace gates, rather, one of the many gates very late at night, he was the first to greet you–flanked on both sides by four Einherjar that dwarfed him and made him look hopelessly small. It was a nice gesture, you figured, kinder than sending a maid to fetch you. Meant he was serious enough to see you inside himself. Or that he was a devout man and didn’t want to risk the wrath of a Prophet. His arm reached above him to lift a lantern with a bright light that shone against the silks of your veil. 

“Why, you must be the Prophet!” He reached out his other arm, presumably to help you down, before he remembered what you were doing here and retracted it like he’d been burned. You stepped out yourself. “Do come in! The house staff has been fretting after you all day.”

You did as well to shimmy your way out through the door and slide down. You’d only been on a carriage once before, when you were too young to even remember it, and you hoped the clothes that hid you away from Hoenir’s gaze would hide your lack of knowledge in carriage etiquette along with it. 

Hoenir smiled at you with a small bow, while the Einherjar did something that you thought quite spectacular. They stepped back, all in unison and formed a path in front of the carriage, swung their staffs like batons until they all thudded against the ground in an instant. They all got down on one knee, then, and not one dared to look up at you.

You never imagined having such a grand welcoming ceremony, forget one so late at night. Everything but your own feet was perfectly quiet, even the horses that had led you here, and the palace was perfectly dark–and far more enthralling to look at once you’d crossed the river.

It was one thing to gaze at the castle from your home, to view it as an immense thing that sprung routes from every corner and knitted together everything on the planet and cast a cold shadow over the alleys and canals of your hometown that wasn’t dreadfully far–but another thing entirely to view it up close. 

You’d never seen anything like it. And the sensation, the feeling of exiting that musty carriage and crossing the boldly painted line from your world into  _ theirs, _ you couldn’t believe it was real.

That it was happening.

You wondered if the Norns were truly smiling upon you to let you see it from such an angle and let you uproot it with their hands, pull it upwards and watch as heaps and clumps of granite and stone and gold fall away, followed by the fat tendrils of roots–a root structure like the image of Yggdrasil you’d seen in books, turned upside down and shoved messily back down into the soil.

And the palace  _ looked  _ like Yggdrasil, was likely designed to tell people that it was the giver of life. It was a castle out of a storybook, with a single gold trunk that stuck out like a sore thumb just in the middle, surrounded by dozens of elegant columns with alabaster buildings and winged lions sheltered below hills, narrow windows stained with the most beautiful ornate figures you’d ever seen (not that art played a large role in your life), all sorts of spires and turrets that created an almost maze around the centerpiece, and flowers of all different breeds and vibrancies blooming between every crack, in the walls and over the floors and between wooden boards.  A handful of waterfalls flowed into various small rivers and provided the fauna that slipped through cracks with water.  And you were completely surrounded, dwarfed by architecture and the same sort of colors typical of your small town, condensed and flayed around the palace all embellished by gold. 

You could count ten of them, squinting in the dim light. Ten skinny, square towers dominated the skyline of this massive castle and were connected by fortified, heavy pillars, the same ones scattered around. Ornate windows were painted generously across the walls in an asymmetric pattern, along with holes of various sizes for archers and artillery. You glanced behind you to catch wind of the vast gate with great metal doors, a regular bridge with a bumpy, stone entrance that the wheels of your carriage had bumped upon, and archer holes that guarded the tranquil buildings and courtyard.

It was huge.

It was  _ everything. _

Hoenir had likely noticed your astonishment even though he couldn’t quite see your face, and chose then to clear his throat. “Beautiful, isn’t it? Have you been to such beautiful churches?” He asked.

You’d been there for one minute and your manners were minded for much less than that. You looked at him, “Not much.” You walk out towards him while he begins to traverse the ascent to the ornate door that you reckoned was fit for a giant. 

“I see.” Hoenir mused. The Einherjar walked in perfect synchronization behind you,  _ clink, thud, clink.  _ “I’ve been told that you’ve been performing your services down in the country. Was it a good place to work, wherever you were last?”

“Pretty good.” You shrugged.

Entering the palace for the first time made you feel even smaller than you had before. As you walked through the archway, you felt the architecture grow so thick around you, so thick that you felt a humidity upon your skin, underneath your clothes. You closed your eyes until you’d made it in and the dampness fully passed away.

It wasn’t quite perfect, you could point out a good lot of blemishes just by looking real close–it was well lit by chandeliers and stray lanterns that hung from the ceiling with a dull blaze. Some were fading, nearly dying off. There was some plaster coming off the walls, and you could see that mice had built little nests in the soft upholstery of curtains hanging from a great arch which were a bit moth-eaten, but still had their splendor intact. You might have found those things just by glancing for the first time because you’d feel lost and homesick without them, but you reckoned that this was probably one of the lesser-maintained wings of the palace. Nothing wrong with that; in fact, it helped with the charm. Something about the old statues with bits of stones crumbling away and the water damage on the murals made it feel  _ real,  _ grounded, but with enough beauty and class to remind you that you were completely out of your element. 

But you could make this place your home, if it’s just for a few months. 

“You’ve got quite the rum way of speaking, for a Prophet.” Hoenir chuckled. You glared at him then, just because you could and he wouldn’t see a thing. “Have you been to the big city, ever?” 

“Once or twice.” 

“I see.” He sure saw a lot, that was for sure. He sent you a weary smile. “It’s different from the capital. A funny lot, we are.”

“I expect so.” 

His use of  _ we  _ didn’t escape you. You felt a sick sense of vulgar pleasure at the man’s scrambling to make conversation–not due to his attitude or anything of the sort, but just because of what you knew about him. You couldn’t make out what sort of person he was just yet, but you could sense that something was a bit out of place with him now that he was better lit up inside the palace–to describe him is to tell everything. It was hard to imagine to see a man such as Hoenir take up residence here in a place so colorful and lavish, not with his perpetually nervous face that seemed to be permanently scrunched into a look of fear and confusion, nor with his dark robes and velvet coat wafting off an impression of everlasting mourning–especially compared to the bright and ostentatious colors that you’d seen royals wear. And he wore his mousy brown hair, streaked by the sun and strands of gray and age into a neat braid that fell down to the small of his back.

It reminded you of a hornet.

His hands were stained with India ink, as a normal man’s might be stained with tobacco. His face was shaved completely bare and held no color–but his tongue, which was thin and pointed–was almost black, stained from giving a lick to his forefingers before turning the pages of his collection. 

And his eyes were damp. Feeble. 

It was a short trek up to your rooms, or so he said, and you fathomed that the carriage had likely just dropped you off to wherever was closest to where you needed to be. Your guide and his stingray hair that swayed behind him lead you up a case of stairs that seemed to be a bit inconveniently placed smack-dab in the middle of the hall, so inconveniently placed that you had to wonder what the architect was thinking, and lead you up so high past stained glass windows and tapestries that told their stories as you ascended, stone gargoyles that defended the higher floors from intruders (they roared a bit loudly at you, but purred like cats when Hoenir smiled at them), and the most  _ peculiar  _ grandfather clock you’d ever seen.

“We’re getting close to Karnilla–or, the priestess rather–her old rooms.” Hoenir glanced over his shoulder at you. “It’s where you’ll be staying. The Allfather likes his days regular, and you’ll see that.”

“Isn’t he in Odinsleep?” You asked before you could think better of it. “What does his children like?”

“Children like what their parents like.” He answered with pursed lips, and you reckoned that was a sign to not say anything. He rearranged his face then and said, “Since Thor is venturing about the realms and Hela is often busy, my betrothed is the master of this great palace.” There was a look of aloofness on his face when he mentioned Loki. “I believe you will be getting acquainted with the house staff soon. Strange people. You’ll be meeting them shortly, and, ah!” You didn’t quite know how to respond to that, and then looked right in front of you to see the most looming, resolute presence you’d ever seen. 

She was tall,  _ extremely  _ tall, certainly over seven feet tall–maybe eight?–and dreadfully imposing with a smile that seemed to be stitched on her skin because it seemed so out of place–you realized that was because her makeup was fully done, and it was the makeup of a clown or performer. Pure white, black lipstick, with stars and hearts drawn on each side of her face. She was donned in a bright red clown suit, all ruffled up, and a jesters hat.

“Why, how lovely!” She said dreamily, bent down and rushed towards you to embrace you in a hug with long, spindly arms, and you sputtered because prophets shouldn’t be touching everyone willy-nilly. Hoenir grabbed her neck ruffle to pull her back, much to your relief. Her embrace was suffocating.

“Baduhenna, what’s gotten into you?” He was quick to raise his voice. “This is the Prophet! The one Karnilla recommended herself! You can’t hug the  _ Prophet!  _ Prophets take a vow of chastity!” 

The jester-woman leaned back from you, but held your shoulders in a vice grip. She had a long neck, uncannily long, and she settled it straight to look at you. “It’s so relieving to know we have a new leader now…” She cooed, beginning to fan herself. Her voice had a twinge of a country accent to it, but she spoke in the ways that all the other hoity-toity nobles did. “Our poor Prince Loki sleeps very poorly, and his nights have been ten times as worse ever since our dear Karny died. No one to exorcise him!”

Exorcise? Was that in your job description?

Hoenir cleared his throat. “Yes, well… The Prophet came here from a very fine place in the country. And after being several times in the city.”

The woman looked at you, smiling wide. “Is that so?” 

“Well, only one or two times.” You deflated. You didn’t want everyone to think that you’d been boasting. 

The strange woman, Baduhenna, grabbed your gloved wrist to tug you forward while Hoenir was left a scandalized mess, sputtering in the background. 

While the palace seemed straightforward when Hoenir was leading you around, it seemed to shift and transform into a madman’s labyrinth while Baduhenna skipped in front of you with an amiable smile. She had a way of not quite looking in your eyes. Colors that were muted began to grow warmer, threatening to melt off the walls even in the pale glow of moonlight. You could not make out how old she was. 

“Now, you should know,” she began, “Loki, while his siblings are off making their fortune, is the master of this grand palace.” She spread her arms, as if making a point to show you how grand the palace was. She then continued skipping. “The servants never trouble him, because they answer to me. Or,” she sighs dreamily, “they trouble the head of the house staff. He’s very good, you’ll like him. I’m as deeply in love with him as they come, but he doesn’t feel anything for me.”

You didn’t know what to say, so you settled for “I’m sure everything that the prince decides turns out well.”

“He does! He makes a fine leader of this joint, the lad. I’ve known him since he was wee-little, used to take care of him. I still do.” She cradled her arms to her chest then, and you think this revelation should be surprising, but it wasn’t. “Now, we have a wonderful staff of servants here, and the palace is as well-kept as you could imagine.” She put her hand through the little bendy part of your arm to drag you forward. “Surely you’ll get along with everyone famously! Although every priest of Asgard was known to butt-heads with Hela, so I hope you two won’t talk more than you can help…”

Hoenir had insisted that you were close to your rooms, which felt like a quarter of an hour ago, but the woman, Baduhenna, had taken you around what felt like the whole palace till your feet were threatening to fall right off. 

“Now be sure to report if you see maids using any leftover soap,” she began to slow down, “so we can expel them for the day. Did you like my tour of the palace? Odin usually kept the place running, but since he fell asleep, we’ve had to rely on Jarl Hoenir’s ties to the colonial government for electricity.”

You tilted your head. Was the palace in such a state of disrepair that they were on their last legs to keep warm? If that was the case, what separated this place from back home?

“–I’m sure a prolific sort of person like yourself has seen all sorts of places like this across the realms. The All-father combined his love of western architecture and buildings from home when designing this place, as you can tell by the sliding doors with the cement doors and walls, wood floors, and high rises. It’s truly spectacular.” You thought it was confusing, a maze encased by gold on the outside and that it looked like it was built by someone who was going crazy while they did it, but you wouldn’t insult the All-father’s sensibilities by saying so. Baduhenna led you through a door that led to a passage. “Oh, and here’s your room!”

Here it was. What separated this place from back home. 

You’d never had your own room before, odd for someone your age. It was great, bright, and about ten times the space of the bedroom filled with bunk beds that you shared with other children back at the orphanage. You couldn’t help but gape as you took a look around, for what was cramped and inexpensive back there was in equal measure elegant and attractive out here. Everything was prim and spotless, baronial in style with polished wood floors, a large vanity that you didn’t think you’d ever need, a fireplace and high, decorative ceilings with enough rugs and furs to keep the room insulated, and wide windows with a view of the courtyard. The bed had a flamboyant canopy studded with patterns of all different sorts, and there was even a walk-in bathroom!

“Karnilla wasn’t one for a big room,” Baduhenna said with a fluttering gaze, “detachment from the physical world, or something? To become closer to the Norns, and anyone above them. But we gave her one anyway. Isn’t that just sweet?”

You made a noise of affirmation in the back of your throat, while she still seemed to look anywhere but at you. You looked out of the door you came in from to notice three other grand rooms, all marked with ornate doors just on the same living floor. One of them was parallel to yours, shut tight without a key poking out of it.

You point at it. “Where’s that lead?” Thinking that they might just be closets for priestly stuff. 

“That’s Prince Loki’s room! Next to him are his brother and sisters, but you’ll hardly see them around. Loki’s occupied this floor himself since Karnilla’s passing.” She said in the midst of some odd stretch.

Quite the wake-up call. Whatever fantasies you’d been entertaining about wealth and fortune and glory, it had all caught up with you; there was a prince snuggled up beyond that doorway, right close to where you’d be sleeping tonight. “You mean that he’s asleep right through there? Right across from me?” 

Perhaps you said it a bit loudly, but Baduhenna’s face contorted then into one of complete, unmistakable  _ rage  _ in the most horrifying sneer you’d ever seen before falling back into her serene smile. “That’s right! He suffers terribly from night-terrors, as I’ve mentioned. If he wakes he may start screaming, but he won’t call for you since you are a stranger to him now.”

She skips her way out of the room then, after bidding you sweet dreams and a good rest. 

After she was gone and the door was shut tight, you closed the curtains and took a good look around everywhere you could reach to find any peepholes, and mentally hatched an escape plot in case a horrible accident befell the palace. Once you were done with your thorough inspection, the aches and cold from the day’s travels and all your weariness caught up with you. You took off your robes and veil, changed into a sleeping outfit that Amora had packed into your trunk, and sat yourself on the bed. 

It was soft, softer than any bed you’d laid upon before, and the sheets were a nice texture. You laid back and sprawled all over it, relishing in the sensation of a bed not being too hard for your back. You closed your eyes and wondered how everyone back at the orphanage was faring without you; it was only eleven o’clock. You tended to make fun of people who slept before midnight, back home. 

You weren’t used to the silence, it was more of an earworm than anything else. In the orphanage, there was always something happening, a spill, a burn, an infant sobbing accompanied by Nanshe’s complaints. The palace was filled to the brim with a sort of bleak silence that hummed its way around your ears until you grew troubled, walked to the window, and damn near fainted when you noticed how high up you were. You figured that you should try putting on something more comfortable to wear, but nothing in that trunk was really yours–just the fancy wear and sleep clothes that Amora had packed away for you. You pressed the cloth of your dress to your nose, only to get the faint smell of blood and realized that it was the one Sigyn had tried to sew after you bugged her about learning.

You wondered if you’d feel less alone in one of Hahanu’s dog skin coats, or a quilt that you had long outgrown. Everyone was probably having dinner right now, and they might have been thinking of you, or thinking of someone else entirely.

Those thoughts kept you company throughout a fitful sleep. 

You felt yourself teeter on the edge of consciousness for a while, after letting your mind be bombarded with sights and smells you weren’t sure you’d experienced before. It was pleasant, almost, a mind stretched out across a rolling press, stretched thin, almost snapping, and having dreams kneaded into it with soft hands until you heard a scream. 

Screaming. 

Your eyes opened and you jolted out of whatever fantasy your brain had conjured.

It was not regular screaming, but something curdling and guttural that bypassed the ears and shot an arrow straight into the heart. 

You got out of bed immediately, throwing on your cloak and veil because even when your mind was plagued and botched with the remnants of sleep and in a place wholly unfamiliar to anything it had seen before, you would surely remember to do that. It had been ingrained into you to cover your face, like breathing or blinking.

Your feet hit the ground,  _ pit pat,  _ one after another, with the very simple goal of stopping that wild noise. The moonlit windows plunged about in the distance between his room and yours, creating a great black shadow illuminated only by the light that danced on figures that were stained on the window. 

If you put your ear on the door, you realized that it wasn’t nonsense he was screaming, but a mantra. Repetitive. “Mama,” he cried, “mama!”

You took a deep breath in and opened the door.

And it was worse than you could have imagined.

His body twisted and turned and convulsed as though he was being strangled, sweating so many buckets that it looked like he’d taken a tub of soap water and drenched his own bed. He was crying, no, full on  _ sobbing _ , with fists pounding away at his own chest in a self-destructive tune. Sometimes he used his nails to claw at his left side instead.

You yelled at him to wake up. To calm down.

He didn’t stop.

You walked over to the bed and immobilized his wrists with your hands. 

His chest was bleeding.

You covered his body with your arms.

He didn’t stop.

In a final act of desperation, you took your hand and covered his mouth and nose until he finally snapped out of it, shaking and heaving for air in one shaky breath after another.

He looked afraid.

Chronic violent night terrors. That’s what Amora described them as. 

You realized then, as he slowly backed away from you, that you were a stranger covered head to toe in mysterious clothing, looking like a formless, faceless blob that the shadows themselves had molded to haunt him. You tried for a smile, but then remembered he couldn't see you.

The Prince Loki, heir to Jotunheim, god of mischief, Odinson, lay leaning up against his headboards after scrambling to get away from you with snot and tears still running down his face. Instead of saying anything, you reached over to the pitcher of water that laid on the little nightstand next to his bed (by several half-full shots of tequila–who drinks half shots multiple times?–and a half-eaten strawberry cake), poured some in an empty shot glass, and handed it to him in the way you’d hold out your hand for a wild animal to sniff.

“You have some serious issues.” You said. You’d blame your directness on the shock and fear that the day had instilled in you.

Gently, like an animal that had been torn, beaten, and reproached, he took the glass from your gloved hand and took a tentative sip, as though he were afraid it might’ve been poisoned. 

He sat up straighter and drank, but troubles and sleepiness fought within the whites of his eyes, and you could see their endless battle with wakefulness and sobriety thanks to the sliver of light that the moon provided, shining through the window.

Finally, he said something in a raspy voice. “Karnilla?”

“No.” You replied instantly. You had been taught to be direct. “Karnilla died eight months ago. I am her replacement, the Prophet of the Norns.”

Sobriety won. He sat up straight as a bow, and you heard his breaths come much quieter now, a creeping sound you’d associate with a worm or beetle slinking through the wood.

He looked at you. “You touched me.” He said. 

“What?” You asked.

“You touched me.” He repeated, looking almost docile. “You broke your vow. You touched me.” 

You shouldn’t have, but you grew defensive then. “You weren’t waking up when I screamed at you. Next time, I’ll use a pillow.” 

He stretched his neck and settled back into his bed. “Don’t be cross. I was asking for your sake, Prophet. Not my own.” His voice was hushed and quiet. A nice, pleasant voice, soft and soothing to listen to, cultured and intelligent sounding. You remind yourself not to walk in on him sleeping when you can avoid it, lest you forget the malicious things that voice has led people to do.

Yet in the dead of night, he seemed sincere. 

“Thank you,” you said to him, “for your concern.” You fold your hands in front of you, unsure of what to say, but even more unsure if you were willing to leave him in this state. If he hurt himself while he slept, you had a hunch that you’d be the one to pay for it.

Everything is still as he drinks his water, the same sort of silence that drives men to madness that you recognized from earlier came back to haunt you.

“I don’t… have  _ issues.”  _ He said. He was glowering at you.

_ Fuck. _

“Apologies, My Prince!” You threw on that voice, the accent that you noticed everyone else in the palace used, “I have… a crass way of speaking. I speak directly to all, all including you, for surely the Norns should be able to hear any fabrications I spin.” 

He observed you for a minute. “So you weren’t lying when you said I have issues? Come now Prophet, surely you realize, you’re making this more awkward for yourself.”

“I–uh–”

“It’s good. I suppose it’s fine.” He cuts you off. “Please continue to be honest with me during your time here. Many are not.” A small grin forms on his face. “Many are afraid I would enact divine justice, but now that you’re here,” he looks at you, where your eyes are, “I can ask you to do it for me.”

That was a very dangerous thing to say. Cautiously, in the same way he was earlier, you made your way to his bed to sit down; the sheets were cold and felt damp, like sheets of pastry. You could feel the dampness through your clothes. You were going to ask if you could help somehow, but he cut you off by shaking his head.

The silence marinates. 

“Look outside the window. That one” He prompted. 

You did so, making your way to look out of it. He had the same view as you, from the window he gestured at, the courtyard.

“See the tree there? In the center of the courtyard. Large.” His voice is halting. “The first thing you notice when you look outside.”

It was certainly large, bare, reaching out of the ground like a skeleton’s hand from the underworld. Stark branches stuck out from one another like antlers that clattered and murmured and cast a stark shadow on everything it touched, and it was right in the middle, amongst the tiles. You wondered if the designers for this place liked symmetry. 

“I do. See it.” You said nothing more, because you were not quite sure if now would be a good time to start using all of them fancy titles.

“My mother hung from that tree.” He blew a little air from his nose. “On moonless nights like this one, I can see her ghost dangling from that branch.”

Prophets are good. They are kind, and benevolent and forgiving, and although they are tested by unseen forces far more than other people, they always know what to say. But you are not a prophet, you are a liar and a thief, and there wasn’t anything you could possibly say to Loki. Maybe he probably just wanted to make you a bit uncomfortable, as princes do with strangers, and it was working perfectly in his favor. 

You wondered why Amora didn't just appoint you to a maid's position, instead of a ceremonial leader. You asked her why, once, and she said maids were easily taken advantage of. And that it was hard to get into the palace.

She also said it was hard to leave once you were in.

“After she died,” Loki continued, “The Priestess was very kind to me. She used to make me tea in her room, the room you sleep in now.” He made a vague, admonishing gesture. “It was the kind you only had to add hot water to. When I was older, she started using leaves, instead. I complained that it would take too much time; The Priestess just kept on steeping the leaves and then let me drink some. It was so good. Sweet. I couldn’t believe it was the same tea.” He glanced at you. “You’re not quite like that. I can see that. You are holy, but you are… beneath us. You won’t be able to handle living here.”

  
A serpentine grin laced his features.

You turned towards him, because Prophets are gracious. “I am not Karnilla,” you said, “I cannot be the same person you are looking for… but I see that The Priestess taught you luxury, with tea leaves. Did she also teach you the Norns?”

“Yes.” Said Loki, in response to the strange question.

“I’d say that the old tea matches how you might’ve been living, then.” You stood up, “You wanted to be satisfied with that. But then, if you did, you’d be missing out on something amazing. Something that you could take just by, stretching your hand out a little bit.” You stand up. “There is a saying, amongst humble folk. That when you’re hungry, instead of eating whatever is close, you should be patient–even if that means becoming hungrier, and eat something that tastes real good. Now,” you turned to face him, “would you like me to make you some tea?” 

To your surprise, and your delight, he didn’t put up a fight. He just nodded and curled a bit into himself.

You took the short walk back to your own rooms, to scurrage for any tea-making materials. It wasn’t that hard, looked like they didn’t do a nifty job of clearing out Karnilla’s room when she died. You found some mint and jasmine, and poured water into a kettle that sat on top of her trinkets with a sink pressed into the wall. You marvelled at it for a moment; back home you’d gotten water from thin channels, rusty pots and rain. Here you could take as much as you like. 

Along with the tea once you’d finished making it, you grabbed something from your trunk–turmeric and honey amongst the small snacks that you’d shoved in there when no one was watching your way. It might’ve been selfish, but you weren’t sure about how good you’d be eating while playing the Prophet, or if you’d have to fast for twenty days and twenty nights or something of the sort. Looking back now, you’d packed an almost pathetic amount of food that wouldn’t last you a fortnight–but for this moment, you had something to share. 

“Honey?” You’d asked when you made it back to Loki’s room. He nodded, and watched the amber liquid drip into the confectionary. You couldn’t see him very well, but you imagined he looked a bit put-out. 

“The woman who took care of me,” you began before you caught yourself, “in the monastery where I was raised used to give me this when I had nightmares. She said it would help, and it often did.” As Loki took small sips to avoid getting burnt, you took a small amount of turmeric in a teaspoon lying on his nightstand (you figured it was what he was using to eat his cake) and added some honey, then held it up to his mouth.

It was true, mostly. You remembered many nights of honey and turmeric, and sometimes when the infants were crying you’d add a drop of gin to get them to shut it sooner.

He ended up eating from the spoon you held to him, without taking it for himself. It was dark, you couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see you no matter what time of day it was, it was fine. He took the spoonful in his mouth without complaint and laid back to rest.

You wondered then, if he figured you were just about the same age as him, taking over the role of someone who was once so vital. Does he know? If he doesn’t, what would he think? But you had lived in worlds so completely separate up till this point, would it make a difference? For if you were young, he was an infant, he was a chick, or a pigeon that knew nothing. One who pecks at his food and started when he realized that he messed up somehow. 

Surely this job would be very easy, for Loki had as many blind spots as spots that he could see.

"I am not taken care of well." Loki said. He looked hollow, like he was carved out of the moon. "Not by any adults, anyway. This place is strange."

You didn't respond.

“Tea.” Loki said, snapping you out of your reverie. “Do you like it? Or was everything I said wasted?”

You looked up at him. “S’alright.” You said.

He waited for you to continue. You didn’t. He looked at you curiously, or you assumed it was curious because you couldn’t make out his features too well in the dark and said, “I like it.” 

“I reckon I could have figured that out from just now.” 

“Yes,” he said, “but soon you will need to save me and my wayward soul, so you will have to understand me.” He did this thing where he sort of lounged against the headboard with his hands behind his head. “I have nothing better to do, as the second prince of Asgard and consort of Jotunheim,” he threw up his hands then as if frustrated, “than to sit around, browse for new material to read and drink tea. Jarl Hoenir won’t even let me into his alcohol cabinet nowadays.” You figured that was very cruel. “It often feels like I’m a working class fellow scavenging for foil and bottle caps to sell.” You nearly chuckle at this, because you did once know a fellow who did just that for coin. He ended up dying of tetanus because after everything, it was a rusty nail that took him out, but you held your tongue. 

“How do you mean?” You prodded instead. 

“I go to the library, the magnificent library filled with relics that Hoenir has spent his life collecting, grab anything that piques my interest–be it something shaped oddly, or with a strange title. I used to listen to people who were visiting, stopping, thinking, sometimes not thinking, but no one comes to the palace anymore. When I would feel thirsty, or hot, I would make a cup of tea. At that time, I felt like I could soak up the library air, the ambience, the whispers, the smell of pages and dead trees and the fresh ink that you could hear being written down and then, sink into them. At that time, I used to believe in finding voices, perhaps, illuminations in the artifacts and tales in the things I could pick up in my hands.” He raised his arms, then placed them back down in his lap. “But I don’t want to be in charge. And everything is silent now.”

“Ain’t that a good thing?” You ask him. He glances at you. “Things like tea and books ought to be silent, not whispering secrets to you, otherwise they’re no better than other, hedonistic distractions.”  _ Hedonistic.  _ That was a good word. 

“Distractions?”

“From the Norns. The afterlife. Redemption.” You tell him. 

He lets out a snort. “What a strange Prophet you are. You preach pure submission, you cover yourself, and yet you touched me earlier and snapped at me when I asked about it. And now you claim I’m a hypocrite.” 

“I made none such claim.” You put your hands up in a gesture you hoped gave an air of surrendering, “I don’t know your faith, and I don't know you. I just met you after all, but,” you thought for a minute as an idea came to you, “if you drink the tea I make you before bed from now on and don’t wake me up in the night screaming, I’ll offer you my services in return.” 

“You think that the tea enough will be a substitute from one of those,” his face pales, “exorcisms? We’ve tried everything to make them stop, and they never go away. But I suppose you have a point, The Priestess dealt with all sorts of sinners, she had experience, and I wouldn’t want to be the one to taint you in any way with my horrible–”

You put a hand up, “Stop.” He does. “I’ll help with your nightmares from now on in the most painless way I can. The way I dealt with them at home. I’m a  _ Prophet,  _ not a priest.”

Amora had taught you a few tricks in preparation for this one lie, but there was nothing but fallacies when you said that you’d do it like you did back home. If this was the orphanage, you’d just pull your pillow over your head and wait for the afflicted’s night terror to pass. That’s hoping babies didn’t start crying in its wake and someone would stir you to go deal with them. 

“Ah, yes.” He said. “You’re from a monastery. I hope your fellow monastics and nuns don’t miss you too greatly. I think it was a large family that Lady Amora mentioned?” He lowered his eyes. “I hope you found Amora quite well, when you saw her.”

He let his question fall at your feet, like it was nothing to him; you knew confident men who did the same. Dropping a shilling in a pile of snide to make all the other coins seem honest. As if he gave a flag of what became of all those monastics and nuns! Not that they existed.

And it was perfect. 

“She was quite well.” You said. “And she sent her compliments.”

Loki half hid himself behind a large pillow. “Did she?”

“Truly.” You responded.

He crossed his legs under the sheets. “I think she is kind.” He said softly. At that moment, you remembered Amora skinning the meat off dogs and putting a curse on Hahanu that melted all the crotches off his pants. You remembered her demonstrating how you should tend to Loki, her voice muttering  _ that poor, stupid, sweet bitch. _

“I’m sure she’s very kind.” 

“Yes, well.” He stretched and faked a yawn. “I should try getting some rest. You should, too, I don’t doubt that they’ll have you examined tomorrow.” He got under his blankets. “Goodnight. Thank you, for the tea.”

You’d never seen such a polite way to tell someone to bug off after they got what they wanted from you. These royal folks were just as cunning as thieves.

As you turned around to exit, he called for you to wait as soon as your hand reached the knob.

“Yes?” You asked.

“Do you sleep with that on?” He made a gesture that showed he could only be talking about your veil.

“I only take it off when I’m by my lonesome” You replied.

“So I can’t see your face? But Karnilla used to show me her face.”

“We’re… different. The same, with a different way of showing it.”

“Okay.” He seemed to be thinking. “What about your name?”

“I stopped using it,” you said immediately, “when I took my vow. To the end, we’re all the same. No point in acting like we’re any different than each other up here. That’s how I see it, anyway.”

He didn’t say anything, and you thought that you should go, but before you shut the door he said, “I’ll just call you Prophet, then. Bye.”

Bit weird, calling someone their job title like it was their name. 

You walked back to your room, feeling warm. The warmest you’d felt since arriving. You disrobed, for the final time that night, and looked into a large mirror to inspect yourself, seeing cheek and teeth, and you showed yourself your tongue just because that was something you could do. Then you rubbed your hands and chuckled because he was just as Amora had promised; sharp, but vulnerable enough to be dulled, a bit cruel, and obviously half in love with her already. That gold may as well have been counted and wrapped with your name put on it, and the doctor may as well be standing with a straightjacket in front of the madhouse door. 

Your sleep was far less fitfull than the one you entered earlier. You did not hear anymore screaming, and the silence was your friend for the rest of the night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [gif credit](https://mobpsycho100.tumblr.com/post/636672323543515137)
> 
> thank u to the wonderful amazing [peach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterpeach/pseuds/waterpeach) for hopping on to beta for me !! i am so happy :") <3 and also thank u to [this sunnuva gun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writtenintostars/pseuds/lowkeyorloki), who encouraged me to start posting this story at all. whom without, this story would be rotting away on google docs 4ever
> 
> ok me and peach keep having these drawing sessions for the chapters in this fic. for today's chapter we drew baduhenna since u just met her!!
> 
> here is peach's take (i am obsessed and i love it)  
> 
> 
> and here is my own:  
> 
> 
> she is something like a cross between the other mother from coraline and a jester from a venice carnival to both of us i think. SO what did u think of this chapter!! did you like my characterization of loki? feel free to criticize lol and what'd u think of.. well everything :0 i am fishing for attention please let me know i am here for the interaction. thank u everyone !


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